Richard Hughes' amazing admission: I'm an alcoholic

Dry run: Title-chasing Richard Hughes is fighting to overcome his addiction to drink

Richard Hughes has all but given up hope of overhauling Paul Hanagan
to win his first jockeys' title with just two weeks of the Flat season
to go.

But whatever happens in one of the keenest-fought championships for
years - Hughes trails Hanagan 179 to 168 winners - the 37-year-old knows he is winning a much bigger battle against
forces that could have ended his career six years ago and ruined his
life.

Although Hughes is clearly relishing every minute of his work in the
saddle, he reveals for the first time that behind his host of winners
this season lies a continuing fight against alcoholism.

'Most people didn't know I had a problem because I was riding winners every day,' said Dublin-born Hughes.

'Racegoers would congratulate me, but the guilt was burning me up inside because I knew I wasn't doing the job right.

'Looking back, I realise I behaved like an ******** and thought they
were running racing for me. Riding didn't come first, even though I was
having plenty of success.

'If I'd continued as I was, I wouldn't
be riding now. At first, I thought I just had a bit of a problem. It
was only later that I realised I was an alcoholic. Or I am an
alcoholic. Put it that way. Definitely.'

Like many jockeys
before him, Hughes, the son of trainer and former leading National Hunt
jockey Dessie Hughes, found himself trapped in a lethal cycle involving
daily sessions in the sauna followed by heavy drinking after racing.

'If I drank I didn't have to eat,' he said. 'When you dehydrate, the more you drink the lighter you become.

'I thought it was brilliant, a great excuse. If you only drink a little bit you are heavy but if you have a lot, you'd be lighter.

'It was so easy to get into. I preferred pints but I'd try anything, then wake up feeling like I was dying, take 3lb off in the sauna and not look forward to going racing.

'It was just a job to me, no more, yet all my life I'd wanted to be a jockey and loved what I was doing. But not then.

'For a time I felt that drinking was the only thing I had. I couldn't enjoy myself without it and thought that there was no life without drink.'

In the months before he faced up to his demons six years ago, he was alarmed at being upstaged at father-in-law Richard Hannon's yard by brilliant young jockey Ryan Moore.

He said: 'Ryan was sharper than me the last year I was drinking. He definitely had the edge on me, but I didn't know how to get out of the habit. It was a difficult period in my life but I got over it with the help of AA and others, and I'm all the better for being sober for the past five-and-a-half years.'

As he talks at his home, his young son Harvey practises his golf swing besides us.

Nearby, his wife Lizzie is helping out in the office.

It is a contented scene which helps explain how Hughes overcame his demons and emerged an even better jockey.

'Life's great now. It's as if I'm starting again keener than ever,' he said. 'I love what I do, absolutely love it, and realise how lucky I am, especially getting on the good ones like Canford Cliffs and Paco Boy.

'It's a bonus that Richard is getting better quality horses like them. There was a time when we might have two £100,000 horses in the yard.

'Now, we have 40 of them so you are almost guaranteed to get good horses among them. 'The big days count. Doing what I did on Canford Cliffs [at Royal Ascot] felt to me like a golfer winning the Ryder Cup. You have to hold him up but it was a messy race and if I'd pulled him wide for a run he would not have won.

'I am 100 per cent behind my own judgment and not afraid to lose and get a rollicking. That's the asset I have, even though I get a lot of stick from the pundits when I arrive there on the bridle on one that gets beat after finding nothing at the finish.

'I have enough belief in myself not to listen to it. In my opinion it is a cardinal sin to kick on too soon and get caught. The race is there to win, and you give it away. You lose far more races that way than by producing them late.'

Hughes returned to action at Newbury yesterday from a seven-day ban at Wolverhampton that surely put an end to his prospects of overhauling Hanagan.

'What happened at Wolver- hampton broke my heart,' he said. 'I had a bit of momentum at the time and really had Paul rattled.'

With the ratio of meetings in the South in Hughes's favour, he believed he could become champion.

A subsequent appeal failed to reduce his suspension.

He said: 'Our battle has been the biggest talking point in racing. It has taken people away from the misery caused by prizemoney, cuts and other bad news. Here we had two lads working their backsides off all year to be champion.

'I know rules are rules but they could have given me a day back to help keep the battle alive for the good of racing. No chance. The next day I was a 33-1 shot to beat Paul.'